Despite its presence in about half the population, the anatomical wonder that is the clitoris has had a rough go of it in the hallowed halls of academia. From Freud’s pet theory that clitoral orgasms are infantile and indicative of a failure to mature properly, to its unceremonious deletion from the 1948 edition of Gray’s Anatomy, the only organ known to exist solely for pleasure has been quietly and systematically denied its due. Even after we had split the atom and enjoyed 20 years of penicillin, the mere act of recognizing the existence of the clitoris in the medical literature was deemed immoral.
Thankfully, the tide is changing.
In a study published this summer in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapytitled “Women’s Sexual Experience With Genital Touching, Sexual Pleasure, and Orgasm: Results From a U.S. Probability Sample of Women Ages 18 to 94,” researchers from Indiana University asked that age-old but oft-neglected question: What feels good to you?
Specifically, the team looked at the role of the clitoris during climax and intercourse, while also asking women how and where they liked their genitals to be touched. Please note that of the 1,055 respondents who completed the anonymized internet survey, most of them identified as heterosexual and 95 percent of their reported relationships were with men. That is to say, what you are about to read is mostly about straight women, though much of the study is focused solely on what feels good.
Genital touch preferences were sorted by four dimensions: location of the touch, how much pressure was used, the shape or style of the motion, and the patterns performed. And while there was a gloriously broad range of diversity when it came to what the women liked, there were also some general trends. Most women preferred light to medium pressure, either directly on the clitoris or in the immediate area, with about one in ten preferring firm pressure. Regarding the “shape” of the touch, up-and-down, circular, and side-to-side motions were the popular choices, but many other modes of enjoyable touch were reported, such as pressing, flicking, tapping, and “pushed together like a sandwich.”
There was also considerable variation in the patterns women liked, with 13 of the 15 different choices described given the go-ahead by most women. Those patterns included: touching in a rhythmic motion (which was enjoyed by 81.7 percent of women polled), a motion that circles the clitoris (78.3 percent), switching between different patterns (76.0 percent), switching between intense and less intense motions (75.8 percent), and making the pleasure last longer by slowing down and not gunning directly for the quickest route to orgasm (73.6 percent).
Other things that improved the quality of orgasm? Spending time on the buildup, having a partner who knows what they like, increased emotional intimacy, and not feeling rushed.
Also notable: Fewer than one in five women reported that “sex that lasts a long time” leads to better orgasms.
How about the role of the clitoris during penetrative intercourse? Only 18.4 percent of women reported that intercourse alone was enough to bring them to orgasm. On the other hand, nearly three-quarters of women reported that adding clitoral stimulation to penetration was either necessary for orgasm or that it made their orgasms feel better. That’s three out of four women desiring clitoral stimulation during sex, for those of you playing along at home. Meanwhile, 21 of the women surveyed could not answer the study’s questions at all because their partner never touched their clitoris during intercourse.
Bottom line? If you want to please your clitoris-having sexual partner, you’ll probably need to try some different techniques. Be patient, and communicate freely. This isn’t about your ego; it’s about a complex, unique organ on a complex, unique individual. And it might not hurt to keep a clipboard on the nightstand.
“Weird” is the norm when it comes to sexual desires, according to a recent study from the University of Montreal. In fact, almost half of us could have sexual fantasies which are considered “deviant” or “atypical” under current psychiatric criteria.
The study, published in the Journal of Sex Research, probed 1,040 Canadians of both genders on their sexual behavior and interests. From this sample group, the researchers have said they imagine their findings could be applied to the whole of North America and Europe.
Under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Edition (DSM-5) – often mockingly referred to as psychiatry’s “bible” – sexual behaviours are divided into normophilic (deemed as “normal” or “typical” behaviour) and paraphilic (deemed as “anomalous” or “deviant”). 45.5 percent of the people asked said they were interested in at least one type of sexual behaviour that is considered paraphilic and 33 percent had said they had actually acted on these fantasies.
Among those questioned, 35 percent had a thing for voyeurism (watching someone engaging in intimate or sexual behaviour), 26 percent said they enjoyed fetishism (sexual stimulation from an inanimate object or nonsexual body part), another 26 percent said they liked frotteurism (unconsenting rubbing or groping), and 19 percent got a kick out of masochism (getting sexual gratification from another’s pain or humiliation).
Christian Joyal, one of the researchers, explained that while men and women had their sexual quirks, there were slightly different trends between the sexes.
In a statement, he said: “In general, it is true that men are more interested in paraphilic behaviors than women. However, this doesn’t mean that women don’t have these interests at all.
“In fact, women who report an interest in sexual submission have more varied sexual interests and report greater satisfaction with their sex lives. Sexual submission is therefore not an abnormal interest.”
The DSM has previously come under criticism for the “medicalization” of human nature and being subjected to cultural bias – for example, homosexuality was deemed a sociopathic personality disturbance in the DSM until 1952. The team of researchers therefore hope to challenge the restrictive and inflexible criteria of the DSM-5, which they believe fails to take in to consideration the diversity of sexual preferences and tastes.
Professor Joyal added, “A paraphilia is not a mental disorder but rather a sexual preference for non-normophilic behavior, whereas paraphilic behaviour is non-preferential and only engaged in from time to time. At the same time, this study strongly suggests that some legal paraphilic behaviors are far from abnormal, contrary to what is suggested by the DSM-5.”
Over the past two years, more photographs of bare-naked celebrity anatomy have been leaked to the public eye than over the previous two centuries: Scarlett Johansson snapping a blurry self-portrait while sprawled on her bed, Vanessa Hudgens posing for a cellphone in a bracelet and a smile, Congressman Wiener touting a Blackberry and a mirror in the House Members Gym, Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Ron Artest, Charlize Theron, Chris Brown, Bret Favre, Rihanna, Pete Wentz, Ke$ha, and dozens more.
This flood of celebrity skin has prompted folks to wonder, ‘Why are so many famous people exhibitionists?’ The source of all this au naturel flaunting lies not in the culture of fame, but in the design of our sexual brains. In fact, research has unveiled two distinct explanations: Female exhibitionism appears to be primarily cortical, while male exhibitionism is mainly subcortical.
“The desire of the man is for the woman,” Madame de Staelfamously penned, “The desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.” Being the center of sexual attention is a fundamental female turn-on dramatized in women’s fantasies, female-authored erotica, and in the cross-cultural gush of sultry self-portraits.
Studies have found that more than half of women’s sexual fantasies reflect the desire to be sexually irresistible. In one academic survey, 47 percent of women reported the fantasy of seeing themselves as a striptease dancer, harem girl, or other performer. Fifty percent fantasized about delighting many men.
“Being desired is very arousing to women,” observes clinical psychologist Marta Meana, president of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research. “An increasing body of data is indicating that the way women feel about themselves may be very important to their experience of sexual desire and subjective arousal, possibly even outweighing the impact of their partners’ view of them.”
The source of all this au naturel flaunting lies not in the culture of fame, but in the design of our sexual brains.Thedesire to be desired drives young women’s willingness to enter wet T-shirt contests and flash what their mama gave them at Mardi Gras. Whereas male exhibitionism is considered a psychiatric disorder and sometimes a crime, female exhibitionism is rarely considered a social problem. Just the opposite: It’s exploited commercially. Multi-millionaire Joe Francis built his Girls Gone Wild empire by taping college girls stripping down for his no-budget camera crew. How does he persuade young women to disrobe? He offers them a T-Shirt and a chance to be ogled by millions of men.
“Look I’m human, & just like every girl in this world, I admire my body so i take pics,” wrote singer Teyana Taylor after her graphic self-portraits were leaked. International data supports Taylor’s contention that the female exhibitionist urge is universal. In Brazil, Japan, Ghana, and the USA, well-trafficked websites offer galleries of tens of thousands of racy amateur self-portraits surreptitiously downloaded from women’s private MySpace or Facebook accounts or maliciously provided by ex-boyfriends. It’s not just celebrities who share intimate imagery.
Though men are so eager to gaze upon women’s candid photos they’re willing to risk jail time by hacking cellphones, pictures of men’s private parts usually come to public attention when a recipient is offended; German Olympian Ariane Friedrich, for example, outed a man on Facebook for sending her a photograph of his manhood. These pickle shots tend to elicit protests and consternation. Men do not question why Scarlett Johansson or Jessica Alba might want to sext bare skin to a guy. But women everywhere ask, ‘What are men thinking when they send us photos of their junk?’ The answer is that men may not be thinking at all; they may be compelled by an unconscious, evolutionary urge inherited from our primate ancestors.
Male monkeys and apes routinely display their penises to females to indicate sexual interest. Primatologist Frans de Waal writes in Peacemaking Among Primates:
Since bonobos can sheath their penis, nothing is visible most of the time. When the organ does appear, however, it is not only impressive in size, but its bright pink color makes it stand out against the dark fur. Males invite others by presenting with legs wide apart and back arched, often flicking the penis up and down – a powerful signal.
Men do not share women’s desire to be desired. Instead, they emulate their bonobo brethren: The internet is saturated with penis self-portraits from every nation on Earth. At any given moment, one in four cameras on the webcam network ChatRoulette are aimed at a penis. On the adult networking site Fantasti.cc, 36 percent of men use an image of a penis as their avatar; only 5 percent of women use a vagina. On Reddit’s heterosexual Gone Wild forum in 2010, where users were free to post uncensored pictures of themselves, 35 percent of images self-posted by men consisted of penises.
Though hordes of men pay to peruse amateur photography depicting the anatomy of ladies, not a single website collects cash from ladies interested in surveying amateur photography of phalluses.Anyone who has seen a koteka, the elaborate two-foot-long penis cap worn by men in Papua New Guinea, can easily believe that men have inherited our hominid cousins’ exhibitionist urge regarding the penis. In fact, male exhibitionism has long been understood by clinical psychologists as a non-dangerous compulsion: Men who flash their organ to strangers rarely seek contact afterward, instead describing a powerful sense of relief from the display alone. Of course, the yawn is also a powerful biological compulsion, but as we learned in grade school it’s always preferable to cover your mouth.
Though hordes of men pay to peruse amateur photography depicting the anatomy of ladies, not a single website collects cash from ladies interested in surveying amateur photography of phalluses. It is this marked gender difference in interest that reveals the dichotomous evolutionary pressures shaping male and female exhibitionism: Women feel the conscious desire to catch the universally attentive male eye, but since women’s erotic attention is rarely ensnared by a penis, the male exhibitionist urge is comparatively vestigial.
There are profitable penis sites, however. They boast an engaged clientele who view male sexting as neither troubling nor distasteful and reveal the universality of male sexual circuitry. Who appreciates leaked shots of The Game‘s well-endowed Hosea Chanchez with the same enthusiasm heterosexual guys show for leaked shots of Mad Men‘s well-endowed Christina Hendricks? Gay men.
Any woman who has ever ventured into the world of online dating, or almost any form of modern electronic communication, will tell you that one of their main complaints is that men routinely send them unsolicited pictures of their genitals. Women understandably complain about this for two main reasons:
First, they really don’t want to see these pics.
Secondly, guys send the pics without asking, often without any explanation or context. Typically, sending such a picture is one of the first communications women receive from these men.
“Men are GROSS” is the most common explanation that women have for this. Others might add “They’re GROSS and STUPID. Do they really think I’m going to magically want to have sex with them now, after seeing their penis?”
As silly as this issue might seem to be, it offers some genuine opportunity for insight into the ways that modern technology reveals interesting aspects of sexuality and gender.
This definitely appears to be more of a male thing. At least, in terms of sending the pictures unrequested. Both males and females are commonly sending nudes of themselves to people they meet online, but women tend to wait until asked. That distinction may simply be an expression of gender differences in mating and dating strategies. The fact is, women are told that being sexually bold in such a manner is shameful and makes them a slut.
There really aren’t any research studies looking at this question, and so all we can do right now is speculate, though with some informed psychological wisdom:
It’s most likely that this behavior represents an aspect of men’s misperception of female sexual interest. Men love the idea of receiving such pictures from strangers, and they assume women do too. Men notoriously misperceive women’s sexual interest in them and project their own sexual interests and desires onto women. In this situation, men really are hoping and thinking that you’ll be turned on and send them a pic in response.
It’s probable that some of this connects to the fact that in an anonymous environment, people, and especially men, are likely to engage in more sexualized behaviors. Psychological research has demonstrated that in anonymous environments, people, both men and women, engage in fairly casual sexual behaviors, including exhibitionism.
Male mating strategies have always included an element of “boldness,” where men who are bold and brash sometimes garner female attention they wouldn’t otherwise receive if they were nice and polite. This is a key tenet behind the Pick-Up Artist strategies, where men are encouraged to be bold and impulsive. So, the “shock value” is a way for men to get attention. And negative attention is better than no attention at all.
It’s probable that at least some of these men receive a sexual thrill at the idea of an unknown woman seeing their genitalia. It may be an aspect of exhibitionism, and some of these men probably masturbate as a part of the act, imagining that woman seeing the picture they sent. The fact that a woman rejects them for it is not salient, because for many such men, it is the woman’s disgust and rejection which is actually part of the turn-on. These are likely the same men that used to be in trenchcoats on street corners. In Ohio, one man was dubbed “The Naked Photographer (link is external)” because he would jump out and expose his penis to women, and take a photo of their reaction. When he was caught, he later admitted that he would masturbate to the pictures of the women’s reactions. Famous French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (link is external)used to hang his naked buttocks out of alleyways, hoping that some women passersby would spank him for being such a naughty boy.
Men fear sexual rejection, and by sending pics of their genitalia, they are almost getting “pre-approval.” This way, they get the chance of rejection out of the way early, so they don’t have to worry about being rejected or shamed once they drop their pants on a real date.
Despite his limitations, he says he won’t get it reduced
The Mexican man who claims he has the world’s largest penis (a whopping 18.9 inches when flaccid) says he won’t get a penis reduction, despite warnings from his doctors and the small fact that he can’t actually have sex with such a long and girthy schlong. It’s a pride thing: In Latin culture, bigger penises are considered more macho, which is why 54-year-old Roberto Esquivel Cabrera is perfectly happy keeping his massive python intact, reports The Daily Mail. Besides the havoc that Cabrera’s penis has wreaked on his sex life (perhaps if he had tried these tailored-fit condoms, he would have had more luck), he also has to keep it wrapped in bandages to prevent chafing, as well as sleep chest down with his penis on a little pillow to snooze comfortably through the night.
We know what you’re thinking: 18.9 inches sounds like bullshit. As it turns out, Cabrera’s penis glands stretch only 7 inches, which means the rest is mostly foreskin and blood vessels, according to The Daily Mail. Doctors learned that Cabrera has been wrapping bands around his boner with weights to stretch it out since he was a teen, which sounds suspiciously like cheating to us. All that extra foreskin has also led to multiple urinary tract infections, and the Mexican government has actually recognized the dick as a disability that prevents Cabrera from working. “I cannot wear a uniform like anybody in the companies and also I cannot get on my knees,” he told Barcroft TV. “I cannot run fast and so the companies think badly of me.”
This isn’t the first time someone so well-endowed has complained about the downsides of having a huge penis. But don’t shed a tear for Cabrera, who’s plenty satisfied with his package, thank you very much. “I am happy with my penis,” said Cabrera. “I don’t feel sad because I know in the U.S. there is a lot of women. One of them will be the right size for me. I would like to be a porn star and I think I would make a lot of money over there.” (And if it turns out he can’t actually use his penis, one of these sex toys would probably get the job done.)
May you get everything you ever wanted and more, Mr. Gigantic Penis Man.
Social science has unearthed some helpful, and possibly obvious, truths about sex: It’s better while high than drunk, it’s stoked by intimacy, and it’s predictive of relational satisfaction. What’s less obvious are the invisible — dare we say, existential — forces at work in a couple’s sexuality. Like, say, how the way you frame your assumptions about sexual chemistry shapesyour sexual chemistry — the topic of a forthcoming study co-authored by University of Toronto researcher Jessica Maxwell.
As she relays in a recent blog post, Maxwell and her colleagues wanted to see how relational “destiny beliefs,” or how much you think there’s a soul mate out there for you and how much relationships require effort, manifest in the bedroom. There were two flavors: Being high in sexual destiny beliefs meant that you agree with the statement “struggles in a sexual relationship are a sure sign that the relationship will fail,” while sexual growth beliefs were indicated by agreeing with statements like “in order to maintain a good sexual relationship, a couple needs to exert time and energy.”
They measured the effects of the two different kinds of beliefs across six studies drawing on different populations, like online studies, bringing university couples into the lab, and the like. The results were clear: “Across these studies our pattern of results suggests that those who are higher in sexual growth beliefs – who think sex takes work – are more satisfied in their sex lives and overall relationships,” Maxwell writes.
Being a child of destiny didn’t immediately create problems for a relationship; rather, it just made things more fragile. If the destiny-believing couple was at odds about whether to have sex on a given day — which, in heterosexual relationships, happens more or less, depending onthe personality of the woman — then their relationship quality would suffer. Conversely, the participants who scored the highest on sexual growth — those who thought effort was needed to make the sex better and better — had the biggest gains in romantic satisfaction by the end of the study.
While Maxwell says her team isn’t quite sure why the growth mentality is so fruitful, they have a couple of ideas: It could be that those who are growth-oriented are more down to figure out what their partners like, and attend to that. (This, a sex researcher once told Science of Us, is the one real way to get better at sex.) Relatedly, she reasons, people high on sexual growth don’t let a sex disagreement erode the quality of their relationship, making the whole interpersonal thing more resilient, whether there’s intercourse or not. In sex, as in life, the mind-set you bring to the most important things predicts your success. Origin : http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/10/how-your-sex-beliefs-affect-your-relationship.html?mid=facebook_scienceofus
The hours that some men spend watching online porn is allegedly leading them to develop severe health problems.
Porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED) is an issue first outlined by Dr. Abraham Morgentaler at Harvard Medical School – and it’s reportedly becoming more and more common among young men who simply cannot get aroused anymore.
Rolling Stone report that hundreds of thousands of men are turning to websites like Reboot Nation and Your Brain on Porn, to report problems they are experiencing in relation to arrousal.
Gabe Deem, the man who runs Reboot Nation, told Rolling Stone:
A lot of the guys I talk to say they can’t get it up anymore because of Internet porn.
Historically speaking, a breeze of the wind would affect a teenage boy, and now I have teenage boys age 13, 14, telling me they can’t get it up around a naked girl.
Erection problems used to be associated with slightly older men, but now a common thread seems to be appearing, and some believe it’s connected to excessive porn use.
Sex therapist, Vanessa Martin also told Rolling Stone:
I have absolutely seen a pretty drastic increase in ED [erectile disfunction] rates among young men, especially in the last two, three years.
My average client base is starting to get younger and younger.
Thanks to free websites like PornHub and XHamster, pornography in many different forms has become easily accessible online, which has reportedly coincided in the rise of PIED cases.
Other things like processed food and drugs have been linked to erectile dysfunction, but the recurrence of porn in cases is making it the most likely culprit.
Gary Wilson, who wrote Your Brain on Porn, gave a TED Talk in 2012 which detailed how porn releases dopamine in the brain – he says this leads to men seeking out more extreme content, thus leading to health problems.
This has also been proven in research. A study of 300 men and women by the San Diego Naval Centre found a clear link between porn and various sexual dysfunctions.
Robert Weiss, a therapist in sex and intimacy issues, wrote for Huffington Post that since the dawn of the internet his patients reported the following:
– My girlfriend says it feels like I’m “not there”when we’re having sex. And she complains that it takes me way too long to reach orgasm.
– I get super hard when I’m looking at porn, but when I’m with a real woman I struggle to both get and maintain an erection.
– When I’m having sex with my wife, I’m thinking about porn. Otherwise, I just can’t get it up. I think I might prefer porn sex to real sex.
So, what can be done to solve this problem? Well, not watching porn is a great start.
Those that have experienced problems have said that their sexual performance returns to normal after a few months of abstaining from porn.
By removing the stimulation that porn gives an individual, a person’s chemical and physical settings slowly begin to revert to their original state.
This is even the case for men who have suffered from porn addiction, although their return to sexual stability can sometimes take longer.
If you’re in doubt or worried it’s always best to talk to your local GP about options.
I know it sounds improbable. But calling it gender education would let us expand the subject and stop all the embarrassment
‘As children approach puberty there would be discussion, in biology, of wet dreams and periods. It might be the moment to introduce such theorists as Germaine Greer.' Photograph: John Powell/Alamy
I would abolish sex education. Not for any prudish, religious or moral reasons, but because I want children to have a deeper understanding of the role sex and gender play in their lives – and, given that knowledge brings power, the confidence to say yes or no without ever being coerced.
My sex education at school was limited to a deeply embarrassed, female religious education teacher having to explain the meaning of “Thou shalt not commit adultery”. Her drawing of an erect penis on the blackboard, and likening of it to an ice-cream cone, had a profound effect on a class of giddy 11-year-old schoolgirls.
Here’s my plan: remove the word sex from the curriculum and instead call it gender education. Teach the practicalities of reproduction in biology lessons – that way it’s science, and no parent would have any reason to object.
Gender education could start with the very young, exposing them to questions such as: why are boys expected to play football and girls are confined to the netball court? A little feminist history would come in here – such as the belief, as recently as the early 20th century, that a woman’s fertility would be harmed by enthusiastic exercise.
At primary school, pupils would be introduced to the history of the education of boys and girls, along with how difficult things can be for girls in other parts of the world. And then there’s the pink issue. Why is there an assumption that children only like toys designed for their gender?
Then there are the personal questions that affect even the youngest children. Why is it wrong for a boy to peer up a girl’s skirt in the playground, and what do we do if Auntie wants to give us a big sloppy kiss but we don’t like it? It is OK to say no to anything that makes us uncomfortable.
As children approach puberty there would be discussion, in biology, of wet dreams and periods. It might be the moment to introduce such theorists as Germaine Greer – I’ll never forget her advice to be unembarrassed about openly carrying a tampon to the loo. Both boys and girls need to know it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
From 11 onwards would be the time for both boys and girls to be exposed to feminist discourse. I was furious when my younger son, preparing for A-level history, brought home the standard textbook on 20th-century British history and there was less than half a page on the most significant political movement of the age, the suffragettes and the women’s movement.
So let’s teach them about gender politics, domestic violence, rape, naked selfies, employment, housework and childcare. Then we’ll have cracked it.
One way to understand long-term trends in medical and health research is to analyze the language used in massive bodies of literature produced in the different fields. To better understand the shifting focus of sex research since the field was established, we downloaded (with permission) 4,545 articles published in the Journal of Sex Research and the Archives of Sexual Behavior from 1970 to 2017, and tracked just over 1,000 of the most-used words in these studies.
You can use the tool below to explore all of these words, and see how their frequency in the literature has changed over time. Beneath it, we’ve pulled out some of the most interesting trends we noticed and investigated possible explanations for why they’ve occurred.
The rise and fall of words in human sexual behavior studies
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Humans have been having sex since as long as we’ve been on the planet, but it wasn’t until recently that we really started studying it.
Sexology became a serious field just after World War II, starting with the work of Alfred Kinsey, a biologist at Indiana University, and later founder of the school’s Kinsey Institute, which today studies love and sexuality. Kinsey published his first book, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, in 1948, followed by Sexual Behavior in the Human Female in 1953. In the 1960s, the field was further advanced by the work of lab mates (and lovers) William Masters and Victoria Johnson, who published the seminal Human Sexual Response in 1966.
Around the same time, the first journals devoted to sex research were created. The first volumes of the Journal of Sex Research and the Archives of Sexual Behavior were published in 1965 and 1971, respectively. These two journals served as a central home for sexology research, and encouraged researchers to conduct their studies like they would in any other discipline: with testable hypotheses that could be proven or disproven with the scientific method.
Over the years, issue-specific journals have been created to focus on sex research in areas like the LGBTQ community or HIV research. However, the Journal of Sex Research and the Archives of Sexual Behavior remain the two publications whose articles receive the most citations in a year, which is one way of measuring a journal’s credibility. They’re like the Science or Nature of sexology, and they offer a massive repository of terms that have been used to describe the most popular areas of study.
We found that over five decades, the most popular words in sexology evolved to reflect cultural ideas about what’s normal bedroom behavior. Broadly, these changes reflect major social events over time, including the sexual revolution, the AIDS epidemic, and the civil rights and LGBTQ movements. As sexual norms in the public eye evolved, so did the science studying it.
Language has become depathologized
Early on, sex researchers—and scientists in general—tended to talk about people they worked with as objects of study, rather than fellow human beings. The language was stiff and clinical, formalizing sexual behaviors in a way that made them sound like medical conditions. Over time, sexologists adopted more humanizing terms, reflecting a shift toward thinking of volunteers for their work as equals who deserve to benefit from the research. By substituting terms that sound less clinical, researchers indirectly acknowledge that different traits, like sexual orientation, are all normal. Ideally, this attitude would reach health care settings and eventually the greater public.
Subject, patient vs. participant
This shift shows a change in the way scientists think about the people who volunteer for scientific research. “Subject” and ”patient” make the person sound like they have no agency in the experiment. Papers published after the 1990s moved away from these terms to acknowledge that volunteers are also fellow human beings. They were replaced with “participant”—a term that suggests an active, willing role in the research, says Cynthia Graham, a psychologist at the University of Southampton in the UK and current editor of the Journal of Sex Research.
It also reflects the principle that anyone who helps scientists conduct research should be benefitting from it, too. This foundational belief of modern medical research was established in the US in 1979 by the Belmont Report, published by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, to lay out the ground rules for setting up institutional review boards for any scientific research on humans. Moving away from the term ”subject” was not unique to the sex research field; it was also established through the American Psychological Association style guidein 1994. Today, virtually all papers use the terms ”participant” instead of ”subject,” and “patient” is rarely used.
Male, female vs. man, woman vs. individual
The former set of terms implies sex, while the latter set implies gender. Using gender terms instead of sex terms emphasizes the person’s identity as a human being. The term “individual” is especially useful when studies involve those who may not identify with a binary gender, and in cases where sexologist realized that gender identity doesn’t matter for the research.
Men—particularly gay men—have been studied a lot more than women in the field of sex research because of the HIV epidemic. At the start of the crises, in the 1980s, the virus mostly affected men who had sex with men. In the following decade, there’s a striking shift in usage of “man” compared to “woman” in the literature, which reflects the surge of papers related to HIV related to public health.
There are some instances where biological sex is important, which explains why male/female language is still in use (along with the term “intersex” to refer to people who aren’t genotypically and phenotypically male or female). “Biological measures use sex language more than gender language,” says Justin Garcia, a biologist studying sex at the Kinsey Institute. For example, a paper on the physiology of the female organism would use sex language because it’s looking at a particular morphology; papers studying behavior or preferences now use gender language instead.
Homosexual, heterosexual vs. gay, lesbian
“Homosexual” and “heterosexual” are generally considered outdated, overly clinical terms. According to GLAAD, there is a history of using the term “homosexual” to imply that people attracted to the same sex had an undesirable mental health condition. The word “gay,” which normalizes same-sex attraction, became more widely used starting in the 1990s.
In addition to reflecting more accepting attitudes toward people who aren’t straight, the rise in frequency of the word “gay” in the literature also reflects an uptick in papers published about HIV and AIDS, which was at first thought to be a disease that only affected gay men.
However, scientists soon realized anyone can contract HIV. Anal sex, which was then associated mostly with gay men despite the fact that anyone can do it, spreads the virus more often than other kinds of sex because people exchange more bodily fluids that could contain the virus. When researchers recognized that it wasn’t just gay men who could contract HIV, they started using the term “MSM,” which stands for “men who have sex with men.” This term—which becomes more common in the literature in the 2000s and 2010s—makes room for men who are bisexual, or men who identify as straight, but still have same-sex encounters that may include anal sex.
Now, scientists almost always use “gay” or “lesbian” to describe people who aren’t straight. Anecdotally, Graham says that the terms “bisexual” and “asexual” are popping up more in papers she’s read in the past few years, as is the term “heteroflexible,” used to describe people who engage in the occasional same-sex encounter, but are mostly straight.
Language reveals a move away from socially defined roles in sexual partnerships
Americans don’t live and interact with each other the way they used to. Marriage rates in the US have declined since the 1970s, and families are a lot more diverse today than the post-war picture of a wife and husband raising kids. There was a dramatic shift in public perceptions of sex beginning in the late 1960s, with growing acceptance of sex outside heteronormative marriages, and in the 1970s, feminists pushed the public conversation to start addressing rape and sexual assault. Sex research evolved alongside these social changes.
Husbands, wives vs. partner,relationship
Sex research increasingly has tried to understand individual behavior, which marital status doesn’t necessarily reflect. Being married doesn’t mean that couples are in a long-term sexual relationship, or that they are only having sex with each other.
Additionally, people have all sorts of relationships with their significant others that fall outside the boxes of “husband” and “wife.” In the past few decades, those terms, as well as the word “marriage” are seen with decreasing frequency in the literature, while the more inclusive terms “partner” and “relationship” rose dramatically.
Traditional familial labels like “father” and “mother” have also become less central in sex research, likely reflecting more fluid contemporary definitions of “family.” In 1960, almost 75% of children were being raised in households with two parents who were on their first marriages; by 1980, that number had declined to 61%, and by 2014 it was 46%, according to surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center. Instead, more children were growing up in households with a single parent, parents who remarried, or as a new category featured in 2014 describes, parents who were living together, but not married.
Consent and Rape
Scientists wrote about rape as early as 1965, but it didn’t become a major area of research until the 1980s—reflected in a huge spike in frequency of the word “rape” in sex research papers in that decade. The change was likely a result of the growing awareness of domestic violence, which followed shortly after the push for equal civil rights in the US in the 1960s.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the birth control pill in 1960, which allowed women to take control of their sexuality without the consequence of becoming pregnant. After five years, some 6 million women were taking it. More women having sex meant that more men had sex, too, and intimacy became a topic that could be discussed openly in ways it never had before. This was the onset of the sexual revolution in the US.
This also opened the door to a the first real public conversations about sexual violence. The first rape crisis centers in the US were created in the early 1970s in cities like DC, Berkeley, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. Title IX, passed in 1972, forced universities to provide resources for anyone who came forward as a sexual assault survivor. The first Take Back the Night march, to raise awareness of sexual assault, occurred in 1978 in San Francisco.
Despite the growing awareness of rape, as an issue, the term associated with its prevention, “consent,” didn’t overtake it until after 2010. Recently, the idea of including consent education alongside regular sex education has gained more popularity; California became the first state to mandate consent as part of sex education in public schools in 2015.
Language reveals broader changes in society
Since the field took off, sex research has broadened to include emerging issues happening in almost real time, including HIV/AIDS, official changes in language used to describe race, and the rise of the internet (and subsequent prevalence of pornography).
HIV vs. AIDS
When HIV research was first conducted in response to the epidemic that started in the 1980s, it often led to a fatal condition that scientists termed AIDS.
“In that time patients were dying…coming for diagnoses really late, and there was only drug treatment which was somewhat effective,” says Graham. Because of the public health concern, and the severity of the illness, there is a huge rise in the number of appearances of the term “AIDS” in the first generation of papers published in the 1990s.
The first drug to treat HIV went to market in 1987; however, it wasn’t until a decade later that more effective antiretrovirals hit the market. With those drugs, it became easier for people living with HIV to manage their condition without developing AIDS. As a result, “HIV” became a more frequently used term in papers published in the 2000s; in the 2010s the use of the term “HIV” shot up even further as researchers began to study permanent prevention regiments, like pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and even potential vaccines.
Latino, Asian and Black
The US Census Bureau has had a pretty hard time figuring out how to classify people’s races and ethnicities. “Asian” didn’t appear on census questionnaires until 1960; “Black” appeared from 1850 until 1920, and then didn’t reemerge until 1970, and “Latino” wasn’t a category until the 1980s after Hispanic lobbying groups put pressure on the bureau.
In the sex research papers we looked at, the term “black” first appears in a 1966 paper about interracial relationships (paywall) that primarily uses the racist term “Negro”; “black” is used just twice to describe the anxieties of a white person in a relationship with a woman with skin darker than his. This and other papers of the period were intended for a white audience and uncritically discuss racist ideals. In this same paper, one interviewee expresses concern that being married to “an Asian” would lower his social status—that’s the first instance of the term “Asian” that we found.
The first time “Latino” appeared as keyword in a paper was in 1988, after the term had been approved by the US Census Bureau. The research was addressing (pdf) knowledge disparities among black and Latino communities about HIV. Before that, papers had used the term “Hispanic” on occasion; that word first appeared in a 1977 paper(paywall) about access to reproductive health services, which claimed 15-year-old black and Hispanic teens were as sexually active as 16-year-old white teens.
Scientists weren’t required to include minorities in clinical work until 1993 with the passage of the US National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act. In the field of sex research, some researchers were studying these groups already.
Online, internet and video
From a practical standpoint, the rise of the internet meant scientists could access online databases of information, which partially accounts for the rise in the term “internet” in sex research papers in the 1990s and 2000s.
In addition, though, through those decades, the internet became the place where most of the public accessed pornography. Anyone with a connection to the web could find all kinds of different porn, and were no longer limited to magazines and videotapes or DVDs. One study by researchers at Brigham Young found that between 1973 and 1980, about 45% of men and 7% of women aged 18 to 26 had watched porn in the year they were surveyed; in 2008 to 2012, that number was up to 62% for men and 36% for women.
The rapid growth in the frequency of the term “online” in the literature, particularly in the last decade, reflects a trend in sex research investigating whether more porn available through the internet was creating societal problems. Sex researchers have conducted numerous (mostly inconclusive) studies on whether or not porn influences how men treat women, affects romantic relationships, or is addictive in nature.
The internet also changed how people find each other. The first appearance of the word “internet” is in a paper about swingers from 1998, a few years after the explosion of AOL and when the world was beginning to widely access the internet. Now, it’s fairly common for people to meet online, which could be another reason for the recent uptick in appearances of the word. The internet is home to hundreds of web-based communities for different lifestyles and sexual interests, and apps link up to users’ social media to connect them with others.
Why do some but not all relationships survive infidelity?
There is a school of thought that says if a woman cheats, it is more likely to signal an end to her primary relationship than if a man cheats. And this may in fact be the case, because men and women tend to think and feel differently about sex and relationships.
Men are generally more likely than women to be able to compartmentalize sex and intimate connections. For many men, sex is sex, and relationships are relationships, and the two do not necessarily overlap. Thus, a man who casually cheats may do so without feeling a significant degree of emotional connection to a mistress, while a woman who cheats could see things differently, with sex and emotional connection intermingled in ways that make compartmentalization more difficult.
Stated another way, when women cheat, there is usually an element of romance, intimacy, connection, or love. Men, on the other hand, are more likely to cheat to satisfy sexual urges, with fewer thoughts of intimacy. Of course, many men cheat because they feel love as well as sexual attraction for an outside partner, but many more don’t: For them, infidelity can be an opportunistic, primarily sexual action that, in their minds, does not affect their primary relationship. In fact, when asked, many such men will report that they’re very happy in their primary relationship, that they love their significant other, that their sex life is great, and that, despite their cheating, they have no intention of ending their primary relationship.
Women are less likely to operate that way. For most women, a sense of relational intimacy is every bit as important as the sex; often more important. As such, women tend to not cheat unless they feel either unhappiness in their primary relationship or an intimate connection with their extracurricular partner — and either could cause a woman to move on from her primary relationship.
Consider the results of a well-known study in which men and women were shown videos of two men having sex and two women having sex. Male test subjects’ responses were highly gender specific: Straight guys were turned on only by the videos of women, and gay men were turned on only by the videos of two men. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the women, regardless of sexual orientation, were aroused by both male and female stimuli — in particular, the videos that displayed or hinted at an emotional and psychological connection. This research is hardly an outlier: Numerous other studies have produced similar results, confirming that, generally speaking, women are attracted to and turned on by emotional intimacy (especially in committed relationships), while men are more turned on by sex acts.
Put another way, male sexual desire tends to be driven by physiological rather than psychological factors. This is why porn sites created for male users feature short scenarios focused on body parts and overt sexual acts and little else. Even porn literature for men tends to focus more on sexual acts than on relationships and feelings.
Not so for women. Open up a romance novel, or tune in to True Blood, the Twilightmovies, or other female-oriented romance/erotica, and you’ll see this rather clearly. In such stories, you’ll find very little in the way of purely objectified, non-relational sex. Instead, you’ll encounter broad-chested, square-jawed, deep-voiced bad boys who melt when they spot the story’s heroine. This is true even of the more overtly sexual Fifty Shades of Grey series, in which a really bad boy meets a really nice girl who knows in her heart that she can find the good in him and make the relationship work.
Men typically do not need to be in love to enjoy sex. In fact, they don’t even need to be in like; they just have to be turned on. Generally, it’s more difficult to get a woman interested in sex because they want a deep voice AND big biceps AND a sense of humor AND a guy who listens AND a desire to have kids and fix up a house together AND a whole bunch of other stuff.
This difference is most likely the product of thousands of years of evolution. Researchers Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam describe this as well as anyone, writing in their book A Billion Wicked Thoughts:
“When contemplating sex with a man, a woman has to consider the long term. This consideration may not even by conscious, but rather is part of the unconscious software that has evolved to protect women over hundreds of thousands of years. Sex could commit a woman to a substantial, life-altering investment: pregnancy, nursing, and more than a decade of child-raising. These commitments require enormous time, resources, and energy. Sex with the wrong guy could lead to many unpleasant outcomes.”
Ogas and Gaddam call this feminine need to thoroughly vet a potential partner’s physical and character traits before becoming both physically and psychologically turned on “Miss Marple,” referencing Agatha’s Christie’s celebrated female detective. They note that this internal safety mechanism is not willing to give cognitive approval for sex until multiple conditions are met. (Of note: Women with histories of sexual trauma tend to not have this self-defense mechanism, and as such, are more likely to engage in casual cheating and to be further victimized as adults.)
Men have less of a need to guard against the dangers of casual sex, so they have not developed this inner detective. They will sometimes cheat just for the sex, even when they are perfectly happy with their primary relationship. This is why a relationship damaged by a man’s infidelity might be more likely to survive after infidelity is uncovered, as opposed to when a woman has cheated. Men can and do cheat on a good relationship, and good relationships are worth saving. Meanwhile, women are more likely to cheat when their primary relationship is not going well, and that type of already-troubled connection might not be worth the pain and effort required to rebuild relationship trust, emotional intimacy, and long-term harmony.
New research attempts to link the rate at which elite students buy sex toys to their sexual appetite. Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.
New research by sex toy retailer Lovehoney found a correlation between high sexual libido and elevated intelligence, but a high sex drive doesn’t necessarily mean that super smart people are having more romps in the bedroom. In fact, research suggests just the opposite.
An analysis based on sales figures from Lovehoney found that students from top UK universities spend more on sex toys than others. The Telegraph reports that Lovehoney’s sales and website visits indicate a “heightened interest in sex amongst students in the Russell Group of elite universities.” In short, the retailer found that students with a high IQ may also have higher-than-normal sex drives.
That assertion is completely plausible…but there is also an alternative explanation.
It’s possible that students with high IQs aren’t having much sex, resorting to sex toys as a means of achieving sexual gratification. This theory reinforces what researchers have said time and time again for years: people with higher IQs have less sex than everyone else.
“Intelligence is negatively associated with sex frequency,” said sociologist Rosemary Hopcroftin a 2011 article for Psychology Today. “It’s a bit dismaying.”
Hopcroft said that people who have attended higher education institutions are less likely to have sex on a frequent basis and have less sexual partners than those who have not. Her contentions were confirmed by a joint sex survey by MIT and Wellesley College that found that a high IQ can delay sexual activity into early adulthood.
According to a 2007 article entitled “Intercourse and Intelligence,” 80 percent of U.S. males and 75 percent of U.S. women have had sex by the age of 19. Compare that to 56 percent of Princeton undergraduates, 59 percent of Harvard undergraduates and 51 percent of MIT undergraduates who report having had sexual intercourse. What’s more, only 65 percent of MIT graduate students have had sex.
Smart people having less sex and starting to have sex later in life can be attributable to any number of things. People with higher IQs may take into consideration the negative consequences of risky sexual behavior more than their peers of average intelligence. They could also just be too busy studying and working to find time for sexual relationships with others. Or they could be lacking in good looks.
Science has yet to prove any of these things to be true. Elite students at UK universities don’t shy away from talking about sex toys and what their use could mean about intelligence’s relation to sex.
“It seems Oxbridge students know that sex and sex toys are the smartest way to relieve sex,” said Cambridge University graduate Alice Little. “High achievers aim for excellence in all areas of their life, so it makes sense that achieving sexual happiness is one of their goals.”
Are you looking to give your husband a little treat? Here are a few ways to turn him on almost instantly – and well, we’re pretty sure you both will enjoy the outcome.
1. Nibble nibble
A man always loves it when you give him that little extra bit of lovin’ – so if you’re planning to turn your partner on, try nibbling on him. To be specific, nibble on his ears and see his reactions. Do it slowly and you’re bound to catch his attention (in a very good way)
2. Focus on his neck
There’s just something about the sensitivity of a mans neck that will turn them on instantly. Start with soft kisses and move up slowly.. add a little more spice with a love bite (you’re not a vampire, so don’t be too rough) – while this all happens let him lay back and enjoy the moment.
3. Get naked
If you want to give your partner a good and satisfying surprise then take it all off and wait for him. Nothing gets a man more than seeing the one he loves serving him the cherry on top of the cake. Show him that you’re in control and that you want him. Plus, what man would say no to his partner all naked and waiting for him?
4. Talk dirty
Sneak up behind your man and start telling him all the dirty details of the things you’d like to do to him. Whether he’s busy or not, doing this is bound to get his attention. How could he resist?
5. Hop into the shower
Whether it’s in the morning, or a night – when you’re partner goes in for a shower – sneak in to the shower too. This is that good kind of surprise.
6. Get on top
When you’re having a moment, take control. Get on top of him and show him who’s boss – be it the way you kiss him or the way you touch him. To add that extra spice, blind fold him. With you being in control, and he has to do is sit back and enjoy – plus, don’t men like a little autority from their women?
We asked sex expert Samantha Evans of Jo Divine to help us dispel some of the biggest misconceptions
There are plenty of myths around sex and our attitude towards pleasure. In popular culture, it is often built up as something illusive or male-centric – so it’s not surprising that many people still feel misinformed in the 21st Century. With that in mind, we have picked 11 of the most commonly-circulated myths with the aim of setting the record straight.
1) “Orgasm is the only goal during sexual intercourse”
Sam at Jo Divine says: Many people view sex as a journey, focussing on arriving at your destination ( having an orgasm), rather than enjoying the scenery on the way, but sex is about so much more. Sexual intimacy should be what feels pleasurable to you. Through exploration, each sexual encounter can be a new adventure, not always ending in the same conclusion.
Many people are dissatisfied with their sex lives if they are unable to orgasm, either through poor stimulation, lack of sexual knowledge or just an inability to let go – but one of the stumbling blocks is that we are so worried about it. Instead of letting the wave of pleasure flow over us we need to switch the chatter off in our heads. If you are constantly thinking, “Am I there yet? Will it happen? When will it happen?” you won’t get there.
2) “We all have multiple orgasms”
Sam at Jo Divine says: Well, some women do but not all of us can or do. Often women find that their clitoris and vagina is extremely sensitive after orgasming and don’t want it to be touched again, other women enjoy this sensation and are happy for more.
3) “Men think about sex every seven seconds”
Any actual “evidence” of this is fairly weak. If you thought about sex every seven seconds, this would add up to around 7,200 individual thoughts of sex each waking day. While it is commonly believed that men think about sex a lot more than women, last year a group of researchers at Ohio University tracked thoughts involving food, sleep or sex of 283 college students by means of a tally, for one week. Male students thought about sex an average of 19 times during the day (the female students reported 10),but they also reported more need-based thoughts overall.
4) “All women orgasm”
Sam at Jo Divine says: This isn’t true as some women experience anorgasmia whereby they cannot orgasm. This doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy sexual pleasure. Orgasm tends to be the end of the journey but travelling to that point can be just as much fun than reaching it.
5) “You can tell the size of a man’s penis by his shoe size”
Many people still seem to use feet as an indicator for size… elsewhere. But in 2002, a study of 104 men at University College London found absolutely no correlation between the two. Another conducted in Canada of just 63 men found a very weak link, as well as one between penis length and height. It’s definitely not certain, so for now we’d suggest the only thing you’ll learn by a man’s shoes is his taste in fashion.
6) “You can only orgasm through penetrative sex”
Most women require clitoral stimulation to experience an orgasm and 70 percent of women achieve an orgasm clitorally.
Depending on what position you have sex, some women are able to orgasm this way and is probably due to stimulation of both her clitoris and G-spot which causes this.
You can increase your chances of orgasming during sex by using a small clitoral vibrator or vibrating cock ring.
7) “He comes first”
Sam at Jo Divine says: Female orgasms are just as important. If a woman finds a male partner has beaten them to it, why not have your orgasm during foreplay or just tell him he can’t come before you do – this can make sex feel more intense!
8) “Faking an orgasm is OK”
Sam at Jo Divine says: It’s a disservice to your partner by not teaching them what works best for you, even if you don’t want to hurt their feelings.
Most people appreciate a little guidance when it comes to pleasuring their partner. Even if you don’t orgasm it should feel pleasurable, so make sure to tell your partner what you want.
9) “Sex is just like it is on TV”
No, it’s not- it’s noisy, messy, smelly and awkward at times too. You never see couples using lube, grabbing tissues and dashing to the loo afterwards to clean up.
10) “Condoms ruin sex”
This is a no brainer. Using condoms means your partner cares and you can relax, enjoy what is happening and worry about getting pregnant or contracting an STI.
Often the sensation of “not feeling anything” is due to a lack of lubrication so adding a little can make it feel more pleasurable.
Make sure you find the perfect fit because men who find condoms uncomfortable could be wearing the wrong size.
11) “Sex needs to last hours”
Sam at Jo Divine says: Sex should last however long you want it to. Contrary to popular belief that sex needs to last for hours to be considered good: many couples enjoy satisfying sexual intercourse which lasts between 3-13 minutes, according to Penn State Erie researchers Eric Corty and Jenay Guardiani (2008).
Some women find long sex sessions, while men can find this boring and often prefer for it to end sooner rather than later. Other people enjoy slow, sensual sexual pleasure. It depends on who, where, when, why and how you have sex.
If you only have time for quickie sex, then three minute sex is perfect and extremely satisfying. You may not orgasm but it’s fun and might lead to a longer session later that day.
